14 long hours

[wawhitey]

Sitting in camp twiddling my thumbs waiting for the season to open at 6am. This is killing me.

[slick trick]

Lucky you

[GobbleFarmer]

Today is the opener here too, deer of course! Saw a doe this AM. Keep us posted Whitey, I'm glad you didn't trade in your archery tag after all!

[wawhitey]

Had to bail out of my wallow at about 9am due to an unruly wind. Sitting back at camp still waiting for this crap to stop. Oh well i have all season to make it happen. In the mean time this little guy is keeping me company.

[wawhitey]

Pretty intense encounter at the wallow this evening. I heard something coming toward me through the brush on the far side of the wallow so i got up onto my knees (i practice shooting from my knees a lot) and reached for my bow. Right as i grabbed it a big ole bear head poked out of the brush, looked aroundvthe wallow and sniffed the air. He apparently decided the coast was clear and headed in for a drink. As he passed behind a pine tree i drew my bow and he stepped out the otherside and stood 20 yrds from me broadside. There was a little clump of brush between me and his vitals that i probably could have shot around but i figured id wait for him to take another step. Still holding my bow drawn while hes drinking, instead of stepping foreard he turns 90 degrees and starts walking straight toward me, stopping to nibble on some random crap every step or two. Ends up deciding something is fishy at 10 yards. We have ourselves a little stare down while i have my 20 pin set in the middle of his face, wondering if my arrow would go through his skull or not. After a bit he decides to bail. But he only ran sbout 30 yards, back into ghe thick brush, and starts making a bunch of ugly noises at me and popping his teeth. I think he was embarrassed about running away and wanted to save face wiyh a little smack talk. Kind of wish i wouldvevtaken the broadside shot that was offered (the brush wasnt covering all his vitals) instead of waiting for a perfect clear shot. This guy was much bigger than the other bears ive killed, and he was black, ive only killed chocolate and cinnamon bears. Oh well, good start for day 1 of elk season.

[Kleinpm]

Cool encounter.

Try not to second guess yourself when it comes to shots you DON'T take. Much better to be conservative with shot placement than the other way around. I don't know about your experience with trailing bears but I have found that blood trails generally suck even on well hit bears.

I am going to sit a water hold this afternoon and evening. The elk are just about absent from my normal spots so I am going to give this a try.

Patrick

[elkaholic]

Crazy encounter indeed.

[wawhitey]

Had some antlers come in to the wallow today but it was a 4x4 whitetail. Not big enough to interrupt my elk hunt.